GENERAL.
I
have had nothing but trouble with this, ever since I first found out about the ON-SITE program back in 1989, by chance, whilst
I was still living in Montreal.
I have also
been unable to access the Targeted Wage Subsidy program which I found
out about much later (known in Ontario as the Ontario Targeted Wage Subsidy
program since January 1st 2007),
and will comment briefly about this later
Returning
to the ON-SITE program, this began in Ottawa in 1983. It
was originally conceived for the dual purposes of helping unemployed professionals
- such as environmental engineers, chemists and managers - get back to work,
and to help private sector organisations solve their waste and energy
management problems. It is funded by H.R.D.C., but is managed by a private
consulting firm called Energy Pathways Inc. who are based in Ottawa.
In
early 1998, the coverage of the ON-SITE program was extended to include
placements for information technology professionals.
In
late 2006 the federal government decided to transfer all responsibility for worker
re-training to the provinces, effective from January 1st 2007. One result of this has been the
winding-down of the ON-SITE program. However it has since been replaced by
precisely equivalent provincial programs. In Ontario, for instance, it is now the
Ontario Job Creation Partnerships program; it works precisely as the former
ON-SITE program did, with precisely the same eligibility requirements for
people wanting to use it.
Two
of the major difficulties with the program were (a) very small numbers of
places available relative to demand and (b) only available to people receiving
regular E.I. (U.I. before July 1st 1996)
benefits, plus Reach-Back E.I. clients from July 1st 1996. The Reach-Back provision allowed people to enter the
program up to 3 years after their regular E.I. benefits had expired, or 5 years
for some people such as mothers who had temporarily left the work force to
start a family.
PARTICULAR INSTANCES OF TROUBLE
There have in my case been the following stories of my being
refused admission to the ON-SITE and the Targeted Wage Subsidy program, or
other difficulties, i.e.:-
(a) 1989 / 90
(b) 1992 / 93
(c) 1994 / 96
(d) 1998 / 1999
(e) 2001 onwards
(f) April 2008 onwards
WITH RESPECT TO (a) - 1989 / 90
Briefly,
I had found out about the ON-SITE program, following a phone call to Energy
Pathways office in Ottawa. They were just one of a large number of names on my
list to call, when I started looking for work in Ottawa shortly after I got
married.
At
the time, I was living in Montreal (since arriving from the U.K. in 1982, to
work for SNC) but had found it to be hopelessly corrupt and devoid of any
satisfactory opportunity in professional engineering, which was what I had come
to Canada to do; I was working on my own as a self-employed house painter and
decorator.
The
then-President of Energy Pathways, whom I found myself talking to - Mr. Brian Barstead – asked
me if I would like a copy of their company brochure; naturally, I replied in
the affirmative and thanked him for the information.
I
received it a few days later. That is when I found out about ON-SITE, which had
in fact started in Ottawa in 1983; it became available in Montreal in 1987.
The
problem then was lack
of insurable weeks excluding
me from the program. After taking the problem up with local Employment and
Immigration Canada office, the Montreal Gazette newspaper (which refused to
publicize anything about it) and the office of the then Minister of Employment
and Immigration – Barbara MacDougall – nothing whatsoever was done about the
situation
Shortly after moving to Ottawa in 1991, I got a 6 month less a day term employment position, painting and
decorating at a large military hospital, the National Defence Medical Centre.
This was arranged partly with the help of an Employment and Immigration Canada
– Nadia Iadinerdi – who informed me about it, and in time for me to do the written exam
for the Ontario painter and decorator s licence which was one of the
requirements for getting the position.
The idea was that by taking this job, I could establish
eligibility for Unemployment Insurance benefits and hence ON-SITE, after
finishing the 6-month contract. This seemed the obvious way to get back into my
profession – mechanical engineering. So I went ahead and did it; the job went
without a hitch.
Then I enrolled in the ON-SITE program, on the basis that they
would find a suitable appointment for me based on information I had provided
them. At the same time, during my previous 10 years unemployment in my
profession as a mechanical engineer, I had missed out on a significant amount
of published engineering literature. So then I set to work getting up-dated,
which was a fairly long job but I was able to use the facilities at CISTI to do
it.
(CISTI = Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information,
a department of the National Research Council located at the main campus in
Ottawa)
But this did not work, because no ON-SITE placement ever came
through before my Unemployment Insurance benefits ran out.
At the time, my wife and I owned a property in Montreal (bought
partly with the aid of a
small inheritance from my mother who died in 1986), so I took the problem up
initially with federal
Montreal M.P. Allan Khoury. Mr. Khoury eventually brought it to the attention of
the then–Minister of Employment and Immigration, Bernard Valcourt, but without
any result. So then I took it this up, along with other concerns (about
corruption involving the engineering firm SNC in Montreal), with Ottawa federal
M.P. Beryl Gaffney – again without any result.
WITH RESPECT TO
(c) - 1994 / 96 :-
This
was arguably the most serious. It all happened before the Reach–Back program came into effect, on July
1st 1996.
I was forced to leave a painting
and decorating job after 17 weeks because the employer – Deans Professional
Painting, in Ottawa – was in arrears with my wages to the extent of 5 weeks
(about $2000) and appeared to be heading for bankruptcy.
To cut a long story
short, I was initially refused Unemployment
Insurance benefits on account of lack
of insurable weeks but on
appeal to the Board of Referees and then the Umpire, I was awarded 17 weeks of benefits but
not admitted to ON-SITE. In particular, I blame Board of Referees President R.
Presseault and lawyer Jonathan P. Langsner
(H.R.D.C. Legal Services department) for
what happened.
Jonathan P. Langsner became involved when I started dealing
directly with the Umpire s office – i.e. the Federal Court of Canada – following the initial decision in my
favour. Mr. Langsner used
legalistic sophistry and lies to pretend that I could not be admitted to
ON-SITE. Additionally,
his action and that of others, apart from other things, amounted to their using
public money to stop me from contributing to the tax base.
This conduct, documented
on one of my other main websites, amounted to perjury and incompetence. ON THESE GROUNDS, I DEMANDED THE REMOVAL OF MR. LANGSNER
FROM HIS EMPLOYMENT AND HIS EXPULSION FROM THE LEGAL PROFESSION, FOR PERJURY
AND INCOMPETENCE.
WITH RESPECT TO (d) -1998 / 99
This was as bad but in different ways.
The problems started just after I had finished a computer
programming course at Willis College of Business & Technology, in June
1998. Co-Ops were proving difficult or impossible to get, for me and others,
because of the lack of available placements with local companies relative to
need. ON-SITE seemed to me to be the way out of this difficulty. In early 1998,
it was recommended to me and others by one of the instructors at Willis College
of Business & Technology, because the program had just been expanded to
include placements for unemployed IT professionals.
Briefly, it involved
H.R.D.C. officials initially approving me for the ON-SITE program, in early
June 1998, but then changing their minds two weeks later without even telling
me officially (I was left to find it out by accident). The problem was never
resolved, because of what can only be described as stone-walling, obfuscation and
time-wasting by H.R.D.C. officials during 1998 and 1999 - and former Minister
of H.R.D.C. Pierre Pettigrew in particular.
This is a major reason why I had still not got satisfactory
work, nearly 5 years after graduating from the Visual Software
Developer course at Willis College of Business and Technology, or at any later
time.
WITH RESPECT TO
(e) - 2001 onwards
As a result of 10 months work at JDS Uniphase ending with my
layoff in April 2001, under the rules back then I was still eligible for an
ON-SITE placement until about February 2005. The problem since I was laid off
from JDS Uniphase has been a lack of suitable opportunities - even when I have
approached employers to persuade them to use the ON-SITE program if they employ
me. There seems to be a very serious problem involving small-c conservative employer attitudes, possibly connected
with the general state of the job market.
In the case of Suncor in Alberta, where I was particularly interested
in working, the problem involved ON-SITE having become unavailable there since
August 21st 2002 or earlier. Additionally, I applied for an engineering
position at Suncor in August 2002 at which time I KNEW they had just started recruitment
campaigns in South Africa and the U.K. -
based on an alleged shortage
of suitable people in Canada. (Reference: National Post, August 19th 2002).
I took the problem up with the office of The Hon. Jane Stewart, then Minister of
Human Resources Development and with Suncor – but with no result.
The problem was still un-resolved as at April 2008.
In addition to all the above I tried many times to
get re-employed through something else, both before and after April 2008 - the Targeted Wage Subsidy program. In Ontario, after January 1st 2007 this
became known as the Ontario Targeted
Wage Subsidy program.
WITH RESPECT TO (f) – APRIL 2008 ONWARDS
On April 1st 2008 a new Ontario government/ federal
government Labour Market Agreement came into effect. Without going into the
details here, the wording made it quite clear that retraining was to be made
avaliable to anybody out of work, irrespective of their eligibility under the
usual rules for Ontario Works or for federal E.I. benefits.
I appealed for help with accessing the Ontario
Targeted Wage Subsidy program, under the terms of the Agreement, but was
refused. The alternative that I was offered involved a Means Test based on
intrusive enquiries into my financial affairs – meaning unnecessary
bureaucratic work for the program administrators - and no contract with any
employer, so was unsuitable. No
contract signed with any employer prior to starting this alternative program
meant that any and all employers whom I approached for information about job
prospects were free to say that they would consider employing me on completing
the program, but then “back out” later based on economic or other circumstances
having “conveniently” become unfavourable.
On the other hand, the Ontario Targeted Wage Subsidy program
involved no Means Test and included an agreement signed with an employer prior
to commencing the program. So this approach made sense and involved far less
bureaucratic work, but at the time the government of Ontario refused to see
this.
FURTHER INFORMATION AND SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION CONCERNING ALL THE ABOVE.
Available on request.